Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said watching events unfold in Charlottesville lastmonth felt very familiar. “It’s almost like in a way déjà vu with me being 67 years old and having lived through the civil rights movement. I’m very familiar with that energy,” she said.
King’s father, Rev. A.D. King, was a civil rights activist alongside Dr. Martin Luther King. Alveda remembers her Birmingham family home being bombed as well as her father’s church office in Louisville, Kentucky. During the open housing movement she spent time in jail.
King’s take on Charlottesville: “It’s easy to accomplish dark deeds in the midst of chaos.” Her response? “I immediately began to pray.”
She agrees with a number of other black conservative leaders who are defending the president’s response to Charlottesville. At a press conference at the National Press Club leaders from CURE, a conservative policy group, rejected a question from reporters implying that the president is responsible for the country’s racial divide. Rev. Derek McCoy, the head of the CURE National Clergy Network responded, “You are saying that the president is the instigator and I think that is absolutely wrong.”
King told CBN News she supported the president’s response to Charlottesville. She said after initial broad comments he gave a more targeted response, specifically condemning white supremacists and the KKK and neo-Nazis. That’s in line historically she said with how presidents have responded to difficult events over the years.
King says the debate over where Confederate monuments belong has a simple answer: in museums. “You don’t erase someone’s history,” she told CBN News, but added “history lessons must always accompany these statues and images.”